


Burning Days

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna Lovegood and Fawkes have a project in Severus Snape. Written originally for AnnieTalbot's birthday. Unashamed fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Days

"Eeep!"

Luna smiled at the scraggly chick gently smoking in its especially charmed nest on the bedside table. 

"Nrrrgh."

She turned and smiled at the man with scraggly black hair groaning in her bed. The scarring at his throat was still enflamed, but the angry redness was dissipating by the hour.

"Eeep!" commented the chick.

"Yes, Fawkes," Luna commented, rising from her chair in the corner of the room, "it's time."

"Eeep!"

"I'll make some tea – as my mother used to say, phoenix tears and good tea can raise the dead. You're right, we're only half done."

"Eeep!" agreed Fawkes.

* * *

Snape awoke to a heavenly smell. 

_Tea_ , his brain informed him.

Turning his head slightly, he caught another scent.

 _Singed_ , his brain added helpfully.

"Eeep!" a familiar voice remarked.

"Good morning, Severus," said another voice – also familiar. "Fawkes is happy to see you're awake, and so am I."

"Nnnrgh," Snape managed, opening his eyes a crack. 

A pale-haired vision in bright orange and clashing red passed before him. A pale hand set a steaming mug to the right of him.

"I've brought you tea," said the vision. 

Snape swallowed, trying to speak.

"Fuck," he managed this time. 

"Eeep!"

* * *

In the days and weeks that followed, Snape reflected that perhaps his first word upon regaining consciousness and finding himself in Luna Lovegood's cottage shouldn't have been "fuck."

Miss Lovegood was a patient nurse, and Fawkes a faithful companion. 

"It was the Lulabugs," she explained one evening as she sat, curled in a chair in the corner of the room as Snape, propped on pillows and covered with a quilt, sipped his tea and glared. 

"The Lulabugs?" he rasped skeptically.

She nodded serenely. There was little that she did that was _not_ serene.

"They told me where to find you."

* * *

She had gone on to explain that in the chaos after the battle, Potter had been too busy proposing to Ginny and being a general all-around hero that nobody but she noticed the trail of Lulabugs creeping from the Great Hall and down the path to the Shrieking Shack. 

Nobody but she also noticed Fawkes, looking ready to explode. 

For Luna, thinking was acting and she hurried to follow both bugs and bird.

"And I found you, and Fawkes began to weep. He managed to stay un-flamed until we came here."

"Thank you, I suppose," Snape grunted, sipping his tea.

* * *

The cottage had been a gift from her father – a safe place for him to hide his daughter. 

And a safe place for Luna to hide Snape. 

Mr. Lovegood didn't object, coming every so often to visit the odd pair, and neither did Fawkes, whose regular burning days were the only way that Snape could tell how much time had passed. 

The Lovegoods did not believe in proper calendars. 

Five burning cycles later, Snape was able to sit in the garden and glare at the sparrows and changing leaves.

Two burning cycles after that, he made merry at Yule, unwillingly.

* * *

Halfway through the next burning cycle, Luna decided that he'd sulked enough and crept into bed with him one cold, snowy night.

Her warm skin awoke him.

Her gentle touch aroused him.

"Luna," he murmured, "you shouldn't."

"Nonsense," she chided, wrapping her body around his. "We both want this."

He could not deny that _he_ wanted it. Rather badly, if he were honest with himself.

He gave himself over to her silky caress as she shuddered beneath him.

"Was that so bad?" she asked afterwards.

"I have never –" he began.

"Well, I have, and you did just fine."

* * *

It was the beginning of a strange time for Snape. Some days were better than others, as Fawkes and Luna watched over him.

Some days he could barely tolerate the life Luna and Fawkes had bestowed upon him – snarling, and loosing his magic upon the fanged geraniums in the garden.

Other days, Luna's gentle smile and odd pronouncements had him snorting with helpless laughter, bubbling up from deep within. 

And one day, they delivered Fawkes back to Hogwarts. 

Minerva fell upon him, weeping, embarrassing him. 

Potter and Weasley and Granger were also present, solemnly shaking his hand and thanking him.

* * *

"Well done, my boy," commented Dumbledore from his frame. 

"Shut up, you meddling coot!" replied Minerva, stepping between an irate Snape and the portrait. 

"Headmistress!" gasped Granger.

"She's right, Hermione," interjected Potter. "If Professor Snape doesn't hex him, I will."

Granger subsided into shocked silence and Potter grinned at Snape. 

It was profoundly unsettling, and Snape was happy when he and Luna left shortly thereafter.

"We can stay, if you like," Luna said as they hurried through the throng of house-elves busy at repairs.

"No," replied Snape, dodging a floating pile of flagstone. "That's not at all what I'd like."

* * *

"What would you like?" Luna asked when they gained the gates of the school.

Snape gathered her into his arms.

"I would like a world without a grateful Potter to whom I have to be polite," he replied. "A world where Grangers – soon to be Weasleys, I might add – do not subject me to their righteous indignation. A world where Minerva does not blubber on my collar."

"Oh, is that all?" Luna smiled into his shoulder as they prepared to Apparate.

"One more thing," he whispered as they appeared in their bedroom.

"Yes?"

"A world with you and only you."

* * *

 **AN:** Not mine, no money.


End file.
